The Art of Being Brilliant by Andy Cope & Andy Whittaker

Do you ever get the feeling you’ve been gone for a lot longer than you thought you were. Well I do, sorry every one for being a little haphazard recently. I’ve written a lot of posts about why I’ve been away but basically I’ve been busy. REALLY BUSY. When you live with lots of people in shared housing there’s always another job to do but it kinda feels okay to leave it to the next person? When you live in a household of two it’s a little more difficult. Risk pissing off the person you’ve moved in with (sorry T) or get your act together. Then I felt out of my blogging habit and then I did something crazy – I joined a gym and that has been taking up a little more time than I thought. Turns out I really enjoy the gym. But that’s something for another day. For now a brilliant book on how to be, well, brilliant.

We all have good days and bad days. Some days we’re on form, others we can’t really be bothered and feel a little lack lustre. No one enjoys those slump days – so let’s do away with them! The wonderful, uplifting and funny authors of the bestselling The Art of Being Brilliant are here to show us how to get motivated, get positive and get happy, and, most importantly, how to be all three consistently. Every single day. Using a solid understanding of positive psychology, but with clear visual illustrations, simple explanations and a bit of funny stuff, Be Brilliant Everyday shows us how to foster some serious positivity and mental agility and transform our lives. The book is crammed with practical tips to help us ditch those down days and flourish every single day.


img_1808How to live and breathe positivity everyday

Learn to be truly happy, confident and more effective

Become a great example to others and inspire those around you

 How to cope and feel brilliant in a busy, demanding world

This book is a well-constructed self-help book, centrered around the idea that we can get ourselves back on a positive track and the ways that we can help ourselves, mainly by looking at things in a different way. I want to say – this is definitely one of those books that is love it or hate it and would say, it’s for those that KNOW that the troubles lie with their habits or ways that they look at things. I feel like this book definitely doesn’t take into account mental health/depression and I think if I had read this book with that in mind I could have been a little offended.

The idea revolves around us being lazy to change due to a lack of effort, allowing ourselves to be stressed or distracted by our mobile phones when we should be looking at how we see ourselves. Quite clichéd things but things I haven’t really ever thought about too deeply.

Last week I was in a horrendous mood because of the rain. Sounds stupid, but I don’t own a coat with a hood, I recently found out there are problems with my tax from my last job, I lost my purse a few days before and I was RAGING. I stomped home, threw my gym stuff on and raced down to the gym in a horrid mood. As soon as I got there I managed to drop my phone onto the metal rail of the cross-trainer and it smashed horrifically. What I could or should have done is really thought

img_18071)     I have sorted the tax thing – at least initially

2)     I have heard from the person who has my purse I should be able to get it back

3)     I will eventually have enough money to buy a coat with a hood and I should have done MONTHS AGO.

If I had done this maybe I wouldn’t have had a mini argument with T (who has been incredibly supportive through it all) and maybe I wouldn’t have smashed my phone to crap. I mean I might have done but at least I wouldn’t have felt so horrendous due to me being a mood hooverer (someone who is almost looking for things to be angry about – ie the rain.) Looking at things as if nothing, nothing at all would make it better.

The book revolves around this throughout, is backed up by quotes from other self-help motivators and experts and for me it has a brilliant message in addressing negative self-talk. I realise I’m massively going on in this review but it’s my first one back so shrugs. It does have a slightly condescending tone or at least moves towards it. For me it just stopped before pissing me off but the stick men drawings and some of the jokey language was beginning to grate.

I think if you’re looking to make little changes in your life and want a book that maybe makes you look at somethings you’re doing differently once in a while this is a lovely little book to pick up. It would also work wonderfully as a stocking present filler! (If you’re thinking about Christmas already.) Gah I’m going to wrap this up here because I HAVE GONE ON A LOT. I enjoyed it but I think there are lots out there that take a deeper look at psychology and self-help. This was book to start me on a journey of self love that I hope to continue.

LIIIINKS 

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